Arizona Mother Who Allegedly Poisoned Children Asks Judge For Death Penalty

The Arizona mother accused of fatally poisoning her kids so she wouldn’t have to give them to their father asked a judge for the death penalty, KTLA 5reports.

Marilyn Edge (pictured) made the shocking request during her first court appearance Monday. Appearing via video from Santa Ana’s Central Jail, the judge asked her about choosing an arraignment date.

Watch Marilyn request the death penalty here:

“Only if you promise me the death penalty,” she replied. When asked again, she made the same request. After urging by her lawyer, she eventually responded and her arraignment was moved to October 25th. After the appearance, Senior Deputy District Attorney Sonia Balleste, who is prosecuting Marilyn, said death sentences would be “assessed at the appropriate time.”

“The only death penalty she’s been able to achieve successfully has been that of her children,” Balleste added.

Marilyn stands accused of poisoning her two children-10-year-old Faith and 13-year-old Jaelen. After splitting with then-husband Mark Edge in 2007, she won custody of them in 2009, as Mark served in Afghanistan.

Edge eventually won full custody of the kids this month, with the judge citing “extreme parental alienation” on Marilyn’s part as the reason. She was supposed to return them to him in Georgia over the weekend.

The custodial change promoted Marilyn to go on the run and reportedly kill the kids. Officers arrested her after she tried ramming her car into an electrical box outside a Costa Mesa Home Depot last Saturday. She was apparently suicidal, officers say.

When responding officers tried removing her from the car, “she was attempting to strangle herself with something around her neck,” a police spokesman said. Marilyn told the officers the children were at the Hampton Inn & Suites in Santa Ana. Officers raced to the hotel and located their bodies in a third-floor room. Police don’t know why she fled to California.

Mark was hospitalized for duress after finding out about the murders, according to his attorney. “He could not talk to me on the phone at all, “Marian Weeks told the Hollywood Laist. “It’s tragic. It’s just tragic … Never in our minds did we imagine that she’d murder them.”

Marilyn has been charged with two felony counts of special circumstances murder. If convicted, she could get her wish and receive the death penalty.